


The 0-8-4 and the Avengers

by FemSanzo291



Series: Keeping Secrets [22]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brain Damage, Dubious Science, Helicarrier (Marvel), M/M, Season/Series 02, The Obelisk (Marvel), The Playground Base (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24113572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemSanzo291/pseuds/FemSanzo291
Summary: Alea Carter knew there was a reason behind her knowing those bloody symbols, but why was it? She helps Coulson rebuild both SHIELD and the Helicarrier. She also tries to help Fitz with his brain damage. Then she takes a break to see the Barton-Coulson kids and runs into the Avengers. Can her luck get any worse?
Relationships: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: Keeping Secrets [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1354684
Kudos: 6





	1. January 19 - May 29, 2014: The Inbetween

Over the next three months, Alea helps Coulson rebuild SHIELD. Clint went back to the Avengers after a few days, but had brought up a few agents that he was pretty sure wasn’t Hydra. Alea checked most of them and agreed, but they were hiding something, but Alea wasn’t going to force them to reveal it as long as they weren’t Hydra.

Fitz woke after being out cold for days. Alea went into his mind to assess what exactly was wrong, other than the apparent aphasia. There was a part of his brain that would need to be reconnected to the rest. She would have to work with him on it. It would probably lessen the effects of the aphasia along with the loss of fine motor control on the one side. 

Alea spent the first week of helping Fitz with him fighting against her. It got worse after Simmons decided to go undercover and Alea was done with his fighting. “Leopold James Fitz, I’m trying to help you, so let me. I know what it’s like to be betrayed by your body! Hell, I still take shoots quarterly, I have a device implanted in my back that allows me to walk and metal arm! So, are you going to let me help or not?” Fitz nods.

Alea spends most of the next three months helping Fitz rewire his brain the long hard way. For his speech, there wasn’t much other than helping him find the word. With the motor skills, she started with both Duplo and video games. He eventually graduated to Lego before even getting to do some Lego Technic sets. He was starting to do much better, still having to take a few seconds to find his words sometimes, but it was better. His fine motor control was much better.

One day near the start of May Coulson found some information buried in the Toolbox that even Alea hadn’t seen. It was about the Helicarrier used during the Battle of New York. It was stored away at another base in the States guarded by another Koenig. They decide to go together to see if they can’t figure out if they could get it working again.


	2. May 30 - June 3, 2014: Shadows & Heavy is the Head

Alea was hanging from the underside of the Helicarrier working on repairing one of the holes in the hull. She had a welding torch in her left hand and goggles on instead of her glasses. She started slightly at the sound of her phone going off in her pocket. Alea flipped herself upright as she turned the torch off. As she pulled it out she recognized the wave sounds as Coulson’s ringtone. She answers her phone. “What do you need, Coulson?”

** “What do you know about the original 0-8-4?” ** Coulson sounded tense.

“Not much. My mother followed it though to a Hydra base after the war by following the bodies. So, I’d suggest that they don’t touch it at all. I’ll look into what else was found at that base.” 

** “Thanks.” ** Coulson hangs up. 

“Edwin, can you see if you can’t find what else was found with SSR Item numbered 0-8-4 in 1945?” 

** “Right away, My dear.” ** Alea nods and flips back over and gets back to work. Alea moves after fixing the hole to working on updating the programming. This allowed her to add in the stuff for the lifeboats that Coulson had suggested. She’d been working on that for close to five hours when she got another call, again from Coulson.

“What is it?” She shoves the phone between her shoulder and ear to continue to work on the programming.

** “Your quinjet doesn’t have functional cloaking, why is that?” **

“Because I got lazy. I ended up integrating Edwin before cloaking. Also, I only flew it between Your place, New York, the Trisk, and the Hub. Never really used it for ops. Though I think Talbot has at least one of the quins with cloaking at the base that he's keeping all the SHIELD stuff.” Alea switches ears before asking, “How’s Fitz doing?”

** “Alright. You said that you were worried about him talking to himself right?”  **

“Yes, his type of injury could lead to a lot of unforeseen things if he starts to spiral.”

** “We haven’t seen anything like that.” **

“Good. I’ll see you after I get them started on this stuff. It should take about another handful of days. Also, remember any times with the wall get May to document.” Alea doesn’t get an answer, just a dial tone. She gets back to work and manages to get the coding done before falling asleep.

* * *

After twenty-four hours of working on the Helicarrier Alea could say that it was already looking better. She decided to work in the turbines to see why they weren’t spinning up right while waiting on word from Coulson. She was also waiting on the full list from Edwin at what the hell had been found at that Hydra base with it. She had moved to work on the third turbine when Edwin spoke,  ** “My dear, I have found something interesting.” **

She plugged in her headphones before speaking, “What is it, Ed?”

** “There were 86 more items recovered there. The numbers range from 0-3-0 through 1-1-6. One such item was the Kree body used to recover Agents Coulson and Skye. It was number 0-8-3. There were other artifacts found, mostly uninteresting things, but there were a few other items that seemed to be in the same class as the 0-8-4. There was also some Tesseract powered weaponry.” **

“What class is that, Ed?”

** “Alien. Howard Stark went through most of it right after it was recovered. Items numbered 0-3-0 through 0-6-0 and 0-8-5 through 1-1-6, seemed to be normal artifacts and some had been donated to museums. Items 0-6-1 through 0-8-4 were either Tesseract weaponry or other such things of unknown origin. It seems that 0-8-4 was never examined by Howard Stark. Neither was the Kree body from what I can find. It was numbered 0-8-3 and moved to the Guest House and never moved again.” **

Alea moved to inspect the rotors on the third turbine and wondered how the bloody hell Stark had managed to get out of the thing alive. There were Iron Man-sized dents in most of the blades. Mostly along the bottom, but still it was a wonder.

“Alright, that all, Ed?”

** “So far. You have an incoming call from Agent Coulson.” **

“Put him through.” Alea started to work on the dents. **** “What did you find?”

** “A quinjet and something about those symbols.” ** Alea could hear the sound of the Toolbox being used in the background.

“What about them?” 

** “The 0-8-4 had those symbols on it when Hartly touched it. Just before she started to turn into stone. I wonder if your father happened to do something with it when you were a child.”  **

“Possible. I’ll look into it. On that matter, the GH body was found at the same time as the 0-8-4 in ‘45. So that answers some of the questions, it must have been something embedded in the blood. Or possibly in the DNA.” Alea got the one blade straightened out and started on the next. “Also the Helicarrier is going well. You know Stark did some good damage to the turbine when he restarted the bloody thing.” 

** “I got to go. You said that you’d be back by the fourth right?” **

“I should be. Inform me if you get Talbot off our asses. I want to go see my mother.” 

** “Will do.” ** Coulson hung up the phone. 

Alea got back to work on the turbine. It had been a long few weeks and not being able to talk to her mother was starting to get annoying. The link that she had with her had started to degrade past the point of her being able to talk with her that way like she used to on missions. So when three days later Coulson messaged her that he’d made a deal with Talbot she headed on the next plane to DC.


	3. January 8 - 9, 2015: Face My Enemy

Alea was working on the Helicarrier’s lifeboats when Sam came up to her. He handed her a paper file that she glanced at to see that it had to deal with the bloody writing. It was a painting from the fifteenth century. “Does Coulson want me back?”

“He does.”

“Did he give you a reason behind him not calling me himself?”

“He gave this to Billy to give to me to give to you. Apparently, the team is being a bit paranoid when he’s been on the phone with you for hours.” 

“Well, at least they are paranoid. It’ll keep them alive.” Alea glances through the rest of the file. It was going to be a fun infiltration op. It could work with a team of her and Coulson or Coulson and May. The others wouldn’t have the skills needed for this. She needed to get her quinjet ready to leave. The best thing about Talbot not actively hunting them down is the fact that she could use her quinjet to go places instead of the commercial flights.

It took a few hours for her to finish up what she was doing with the lifeboats before getting on her quinjet and heading to Miami. She docked with the Bus before heading down into the Bus. She ducked into Coulson’s office before anyone saw her. Coulson was sitting at his desk and looked up when the door opened. 

“Alea, how’s the work going?” 

“Good, now this mission, I’m guessing none of them know exactly why we want it?” 

“Only May knows all of it. The others know about the writings to some extent, but not the carving.”

Alea nods. “Who’s going in?”

“Originally me and May only, but you’d be useful in getting information to me quickly. So what do you want to do?”

“We’d have to pull that father-daughter card, cause no-one will believe that I’m not sixteen at the oldest. Though this will be one of the easiest times that we’ve had to do it.” 

“Don’t remind me.” Coulson stands as Alea giggles. 

There was a knock on the door and whoever it was didn't wait before opening the door. It was May. She shuts the door behind her as she steps into the room. She levels a glare at Coulson. “Have you decided on who’s going in with you?”

“Alea will. She knows about everything you do, so it will be fine.”

“Which way are you going to spin the relationship?” 

“Father-daughter, like every other time we had to go undercover after a while. It works well. Much better than the time he and Simmons tried.” Alea didn’t shrink under the glare that May gave her. “Any way I can get into people’s minds, if there happens to be any Hydra agents there it will be easier for me to tell at first then it would be for you or Phil.”

“She’s got a point there. We used to do a lot with her abilities.” 

“I still can’t believe that you kept the fact that you could read minds from most of SHIELD for so long.” 

Alea shrugged and headed out of the office. She walked down to the command center to see Hunter, Mackenzie, Triplett, and Skye. The only person missing was Fitz, but Alea wasn’t all that worried when it involved a lot of talking he tended to retreat. They need to work on it, but it would be fine for now. 

“Skye, have you made the ID for Coulson yet?” 

“Yes, I’m working on May’s now.” Skye looks up from her laptop.

“Don’t bother. I’m going with him. Use a picture of me without my glasses.”

Skye looks like she was about to protest, but Coulson comes down the steps and stops her. Skye nods and gets to work. “Name?” 

“Antonia. Use whatever last name that Coulson is.” Alea hears odd sounds from Hunter and Skye.

“Don’t you two look too far apart in age to be husband and wife?” Hunter sounded surprised. Alea tried to remember that he hadn't seen the two of them run an undercover op.

“We’ll be going as father and daughter. We’ve done this ploy about two dozen times over the years.” Coulson glares at Hunter. Coulson heads back up to his office with May following. Alea stays.

“How much of an age difference is there between you and Coulson?” Mackenzie leans over the side of the table at Alea.

“Four years. I’m the elder. I don’t age due to something close to the super-soldier serum being injected into me when I was fourteen.” Alea turns to look at the busted windows. “Skye put the birthday as January 28, 1998.” 

“Can you have your AI send me an image that has you without your glasses?” Skye asks after a few seconds of looking in her files.

Alea pulls out her phone and starts to look through her pictures to see if she had one. She comes up empty. “Ed, do you have any headshots of me without glasses and with natural hair color?” 

**“Not that I can find. There are a few with your glasses. I have your most recent SHIELD ID photo though it isn’t a good one.”**

“Show it to me.” 

A headshot of Alea comes up on her phone and she sighs. It was her, but it was pixelated. It wouldn’t do for an ID. “Alright then. Mackenzie, come take a headshot.” Alea hands her phone to Mackenzie. She takes off her glasses and tucks them into her pocket. She stands with her back to the broken window as Mackenzie takes the picture. It takes Edwin seconds to change the background to the traditional DMV blue and send it to Skye. She replaces her glasses.

“Why did you want one without your glasses anyway?” Hunter asked.

“Fewer inconsistencies. I won’t be wearing my glasses when we go in and while contacts are always an option for people, I don’t want questions.” Alea puts her glasses back on.

Eventually, they end up talking about other things and Alea ends up asleep on the table. Coulson comes down and takes a picture and sends it to Cint before carrying Alea up to his room.

* * *

The next morning Alea walked down into the main part of the command center in a dark purple dress. It had a slit that started about midthigh and ended at her knees. It had long sleeves and Alea’s hair and make-up had already been done. They almost didn’t recognize her without her glasses.

“Wow, you look good, Carter.” Hunter leans over the side. 

“Shouldn’t you already be on the way to get that flash drive?” Hunter nods and heads out of the Bus.

“I don’t think that I’ve ever seen her in a dress.” May comes over.

Coulson comes down the steps and says, “This is the third time I’ve ever seen her in a dress, so don’t expect to see it again any time soon.”

“Fourth, Phil, don’t you remember that time in Toronto where both me and Clint were in dresses?” Alea slips on a matching pair of short heels. They were only an inch in height, but any taller Alea was worried that she’d do something to her feet.

“I remember Clint in a dress, but not you.” 

Alea giggles. “We both were. For some reason, Nat wasn’t with us and we needed to go undercover. Both of us decided that you just don’t look right in a dress, so Clint wore one along with me.” Alea pulled Coulson with her to the ramp. Mackenzie follows them down and so does Skye.

They get ready to leave. Skye takes the moped off to get the flash drive from Hunter so they can be added into the guest list that way without having to pay. It was too expensive for them to want to pay. After a little while, they left in a vintage Rolls Royce. Alea shutters as she slides in and forces down the memories of the last time she’d been in one with her  _ father. _ When Coulson slides in next to her he notices the shaking. He pulls Alea to his side and starts to talk about the op. About halfway there she stops shaking.

“I forgot how many times I’d been in a Royce with my  _ father,” _ Alea mutters into Coulson’s shoulder.

“I figured.” He ran his hand through Alea’s hair and Mackenzie could see the father-daughter aspect come into play. If you didn’t know that there was only a four years age difference, in reality, you’d believe that they were father and daughter. 

They made it to the location just as Skye made it back to the Bus with the drive. There were several cars in front of them that gave Skye a little bit of time to have them added. By the time they got up to the counter and Coulson handed over both of their IDs they hoped they’d been added. It went through and they were allowed inside. 

“Dad, when are they going to bring out the painting?” Alea looked up at Coulson with pleading eyes.

“Later, tonight after people have donated, Toni.” Alea nods and walks off to see what the others had to say. She doesn’t stay anywhere long and soon Coulson calls her back over.

“What is it, Dad?” 

“Let’s dance.” Coulson holds out his hand. Alea takes it. “We’re going dark to case the security.” Coulson puts his finger to the com in his ear and turns it off. Alea follows suit before they start to dance. Alea bounces between people’s heads to see if their thoughts were about Hydra while Coulson whispered about the security measures. As she bounced around she saw Talbot, but no-one that she could get into was looking straight at him. 

“Talbot’s here.” Alea pulled herself back to her own mind. She held Coulson as they turned. She caught sight of Talbot’s eyes and entered his head. 

_ The first thing that Alea saw inside Talbot’s head clued her in to the fact this wasn’t Talbot. It was of a Hydra agent. He was commanding them. Talbot for as much of an ass the man could be he wasn’t Hydra. Alea pulled free of ‘Talbot’s’ mind before she got caught. _

Alea hadn’t noticed the fact that her flesh hand was shaking, but Coulson certainly had. “What’s wrong, Toni?” 

“It’s not Talbot, just someone using a prosthetic veil. Not sure who ‘cause not wandering around a Hydra mind willy-nilly.” Alea focused on getting her body-centered and what little shaking under control. 

Coulson nods and turns back on his com before turning on Alea’s for her. Alea heard Skye saying something about how they shouldn’t go dark again. Alea shook her head at it, but it grounded her better than she thought it would. “Dear, I’ll be back in a little while. Be good.”

“Yes, father.” Alea walked around and found Soto and started to talk to him about the painting. He seemed just as interested as she was pretending to be about the actual painting instead of the carvings on the back. Though she brought that up as well. Coulson came up to them with a slightly defeated look on his face. 

“Dad, you should take a picture of me and Mr. Soto! My friends won't believe that I met him otherwise!” Alea pulls Soto a bit closer to herself as Coulson pulls out his phone. Alea knows that she has to keep Soto looking at the camera so they can get his eye scans. “Dad, am I going to have to show you how to use a camera again?” 

“No, Toni. I’ve got it.” 

Alea gives a little smile to Soto. “My father isn’t the best with technology, sometimes I wonder just how he manages to do anything on his phone.” 

It takes a few more seconds to get the image. Coulson put the phone down and pulled Alea to him. “Toni, we need to get going now. It was nice meeting you Mr.Soto.” That’s when Alea spots the fake Talbot talking to security. “We need to get the painting, now.” Coulson hissed into her ear. Alea nodded and they headed down to the basement. Coulson gets the door to the safe open with the retina scans. Alea didn’t stop when they came across the hall with what was definitely lasers, but there was no reason to be stealthy when they knew that they were here. 

The alarms went off as Coulson followed her into the main safe. They looked around, but they couldn't find the painting. "Is there another safe?"

**"No, that's the only one. It should be-"** Skye took a breath before continuing,  **"The US Government has it. A military accusation just showed up."**

"Great." Alea shakes her head. They make their way out of the mansion. It was a complex root, but they did manage it. They were sitting in the bushes as the guards ran by. They got up to leave but were stopped by the fake Talbot. Coulson managed to talk him into giving them the location; the Hotel La Ona. Coulson orders for May to go check it out. Alea and Coulson make it back to the Rolls Royce and Mackenzie drives them back to the Bus. Once they are back at the Bus, Alea heads up to Coulson’s room to change.

She walks downstairs to the command center. Skye scots over so Alea can look over the paperwork from Talbot. She scans over it and notices a few things that were off. Mostly that it wasn’t quite right for the fact that it would have been an Air Force appropriation. She’s seen all of them at one point or another. Also, the signature wasn’t right. They knew that it wasn’t Talbot, but they didn’t know who it was instead. 

Coulson came up to talk to them about the mission. It was just the fact that he was going to go with May to talk to Talbot as soon as she got back. May came into the lounge as she was about to say something about it to Coulson. She pulled Coulson off into the command area. Alea looked back down at the file and they soon left. 

“So that was odd, even for May.” Skye looked over at Alea.

“I agree about that. May might be a secretive person, but we all knew that Talbot was the one that had the painting. So why do that?” She wanted to see if the team would catch onto what Alea already thought. Which was that May might not have been the real May. 

Hunter looked like he was going to answer when suddenly the lights went out. After a second the red emergency lights came on. “Edwin, report!” After a few seconds without any response Alea cursed. Something was attacking the electrical system and Fitz found what it was first. A small disk that had been attached to the access panel. 

“It’s going through the electrical systems, it will take out everything with the last thing being the wing systems.” Alea stops to see if any of the others would catch on to what that meant. 

“We go . . . “ Fitz moved his hands in the same motion of the sign of explosion as he made the sound. 

Alea nodded. “We need to bring back up the systems. Fitz take Hunter with you to Avionics while we work to get the other systems back up.” They all nod and start to work. Alea reaches for her link with Coulson and sends a single thing down the link. It was that the May he was with wasn’t the real one. Alea doesn’t stay in her mind though. She gets to work trying to bring back up comms and Edwin. It was working when the lights came back on. 

She continued to work with Skye and the others to get the plane in working order so they could take off when Coulson and May got back. About the time she got Edwin back up Coulson came up to her. “Get us in the air.” Alea nodded and headed to the cockpit. She got them in the air and headed back to the Playground not long after. Once they were there Alea headed up to her house to sleep. It had been a long two days and she knew that it would be a couple of hours before the analysis of the painting came back.

When she was woken by Edwin less then two hours later she glared at the inset screen that was showing the results of the painting. While the actual painting was five hundred years old, the carvings were new. “Ed, start looking for the other TAHITI patients.”

**“Yes, my dear.”**

Alea goes back to sleep, knowing that things are only going to get worse before they get better.


	4. March 16 & 17, 2015: The Writing on the Wall

Alea was looking over the medical files of the TAHITI patients while Coulson was carving the Kree Gryphs into the wall of his office. She was lamenting the fact that with the government against them in several ways she had to be more careful with what exactly she had Edwin doing. Cause if Edwin was caught in a system she could not just pay them off like her brother probably did if JARVIS was in a system that he wasn’t supposed to. She saw Skye come into the office and let her go over to the record player. They watched him for a while longer till he broke the pocket knife he was using. Skye turned off the record player.

“Have you found anything?” Coulson goes over the table to pick up another pocket knife.

“Not yet. It’s all connected somehow I just don’t know how yet. Ward, my father, and this writing. On that matter, how long have you been carving?” 

Alea sat up. “I got back from New York five hours ago, he’s been carving since not long after that.”

Skye looks at Coulson with wide eyes. “Do you sleep?”

“No, the compulsion is too strong. It used to be only once or twice a month and then once a week, now every day and night.” Coulson explains. “The worse thing is that I have no clue what the hell they mean.” 

Skye turns back to Alea. “Isn’t this a bad thing?” 

“It is, but he’s still, well, himself when he’s not carving and from what I could find in the files for TAHITI is a good thing.” Alea stands as May’s commlink comes up on the table behind her. 

“Coulson, they’ve found Ward.” 

Coulson nods and leaves the room to get dressed. Alea drops the screen and pacts up the tool kit. Skye leaves to go back into the research. Alea gives May the update on Coulson before following Skye. By the time she gets there with Skye, she seems interested in something. 

“What’s up?” Alea plops down on the seat next to her. 

Skye pushes the tablet over to her and Alea looks at it. There had been the carvings found painted at a place near New York. “Go show this to Coulson. He’ll want to see it.” 

After a while she sees Skye and Coulson leave, but decides to stay behind. She goes to help Fitz with his hand to eye coordination. After a while, they come back and ask about getting a body. Mack says that he knows a way and takes Fitz with him. Alea goes to look at what they had figured out. On the floor of Coulson’s office, there were both the pictures of the carvings along with images of the paintings that the woman must have done. There were overlapping sections that they hadn’t noticed before. Alea turned when she heard the door open. 

“Skye, you look mad. What is it?” Alea stood up.

“What do you know of the TAHITI Project?” 

“More than Coulson, but I never actually knew any of the agents' names. I had their medical files on Ed’s servers, but I had Coulson blackout any names. I don’t know them. Why?” 

“Because we need to talk Coulson out of using the memory machine from the desert.” 

Alea didn’t answer Skye before running from the room. She dashed down the steps and to the lab in record time. Once she got there she saw Simmons prepping him to be put in the machine. 

“Phillip James Coulson! You idiot! You think that using that god damned machine when you have someone that you trust with the exact same abilities is safe?! What were you thinking?!?” 

“I was worried that you’d say no.” Coulson looked at her and she could feel him probing at the link. Alea went down it. 

_“You know something about TAHITI. You know what was done back then. My involvement. You’ve kept it from me, why?”_

_“Because, Phil, I needed to keep it from you. I know what happened to the TAHITI patents. Clint can’t lose you again. I can’t lose you. You’re one of three people alive that know who I really am. That knows the secret that I have kept for four decades. I can’t lose you. I need to know just as much as you do about the writings. We saw them during the time we were with the TAHITI patients, and when Ward impersonated Amador, but I’ve seen them before either of those times. When I was a child, but you know that if I’ve forced my memories away there is no way to bring them back. So all I have is the confusion that I didn’t want you to go through.”_

There were tears flowing from Alea’s face, and a grinding sound as her left hand clenched tight. Coulson reached out and grabbed Alea’s right hand. He pulled it away after a moment and touched his fingertips to the palm of his other hand swiping them across it twice. He then pointed at himself before placing his right hand on his chest and moving it in a clockwise motion. Alea nodded and hugged him.

"So, we're doing my way then?" Alea talks just loud enough for Coulson to hear. He just nods.

Alea pulls away and notices that Skye had finally caught up with her. "Alright. Skye, you are going to do the same thing that you would have if we were going to use the memory machine. I will be probing his mind to release the memories. Simmons, while this shouldn't be as stressful as using the memory machine we'll need to keep a close eye on his vitals."

They both nod and Alea pulls off her glasses and places them next to Coulson on the bed of the machine. She allows herself to go into Coulson’s head and float around freely so she can be pulled by his thoughts. 

“We’re good on my end.” Alea allows the other two to see her eyes. She steps from in front of Coulson so that Skye can show him the picture. 

“Think back to Rebecca Stevens. She’s the entry point.” Skye shows the standard SHIELD mugshot. 

_Alea watched as thoughts flew around her. Memories of Peter, Clint, and Cooper. Of her and Natasha and Laura. Of the farmhouse and SHIELD bases. The Bed-Stuy apartment, the Parker’s, and Alea’s as well. Then a few of Agent Stevens before hitting a wall. Alea took a few seconds to bust through the wall before they ended up in the integration room at the Guest House. Alea saw herself standing to one side with Coulson looking at a file._

**_“Alea.”_ ** _The Coulson from the memories closed the file._

**_“Yeah?”_ **

**_“Why don’t you want to know their names?”_ **

_Alea turned to face him._ **_“Because the less I know the better. Unlike you, I can’t wipe my own memories.”_ **

**_“Do you really think this will end that badly?”_ **

**_“Possibly. I don’t know.”_ **

_Another wall shows up. Alea knocks a hole in this one as well. She moves on to the next memory. This one Alea wasn’t in, but there was someone else there._

**_“How do you feel today, Agent Stevens?”_ ** _Coulson looked up from the file._

**_“Great.”_ **

_The memory quickly switched to one of a man sitting there. Then three more men and then another woman. All six of the TAHITI patients._

“Do you have any more names?” Skye had her tablet in hand ready to get any names.

_The six faces flashed again. This time though it was definitely after the agents had started to go insane. Coulson's thoughts stopped on one person though. He seemed like he had yet to fall to the compulsion, but Alea knew better. He was the one that had carved it into his own arm. Alea watched as Coulson opened the file on the desk._

"Lewis Seaver."

Alea heard the frantic typing as Skye put the name in. "His body was found at the Church in Miami."

_Another file popped up on the table and Coulson opened it._

"Cameron Kline."

Skye replied with, "Lives not far from here."

_Then one last file lands on the desk. Alea recognized it as one of the older black ops files. Coulson opened it._

"Sebastian Derik. He was black ops before SHIELD. He never was like any of the other patients.” 

Alea pulled herself together and stopped the free-floating. It was unlikely that the other two were still alive. She remembers Derik’s face, he was the one that Goodman had complained was why they were doing this. The one that hadn’t seemed to go insane, but in the end was just like the rest.

_Alea spent several more moments working on the wall that had blocked those memories. In the end, there was a doorway that his memories could more freely go through. Alea then pulled free of his head._

Alea grabs her glasses before collapsing onto the side of the machine. She waves the others away. “Coulson, you and I both know that you cannot be cleared to go talk to either of them. Skye and I will go.” Alea pulls herself into a standing position and says, “Don’t make me put you in Vault D.”

Alea watches as Coulson shifts on the table. He was antsy and Alea knew she’d have to make good on the threat. She looks over at Skye and enters her mind. _“Take him down to Vault D. He isn’t going to stay here willingly.”_ Alea pulls free and leaves the room so that she can get ready to leave. She meanders her way up to her house. She takes note of Goose sitting on the table and wonders when she'd gotten there but dismissed it quickly because she needed to get ready. 

She got dressed in a black pair of cargo pants, a white t-shirt, and a black canvas jacket. She tucked several throwing knives into one pocket of the jacket before putting an ICER gun in the other. She made sure that the arm sleeve that she'd put on was still alright before heading back down. 

She made it down to the lounge room to see Mack and Fitz playing Halo. She looked around for Skye and didn't see her. Alea turned her head towards the CCTV feeds from Vault D to see Skye in it and no Coulson.

"Shit." Alea dashes down to the Vault. She tripped on the second stair and only saved herself from face planting by the flip that she did once she was in the air. It was quite graceful, but she landed on her butt rather than her feet. "How does Clint make that look so easy," she mutters as she stands and makes her way over to the tablet to turn off the barrier.

As soon as she does so Skye hisses, "Took you long enough."

"Don't blame me. I was at my house changing. Blame the other three that are still upstairs. They were the ones not to notice." 

They head back upstairs. Alea sees that Simmons had joined Fitz and Mack at the TV. "Mack, you're coming with us. Let's go." Alea continues to the garage. She grabs her motorcycle helmet as she walks through the door.

"You guys take the SUV. I'm going to ride ahead of you on my bike." Alea walks over to her motorcycle.

"Shouldn't we stay together?" 

"I know where I'm going, and I know the most about TAHITI. I will be fine." Alea mounts the motorcycle and puts on the helmet. She rides off without another word. The doors automatically opened to let her out. She had Edwin give her the directions in her helmet as she sped down the highway. She knew that Coulson wasn't in the best frame of mind when he left, and that worried her. All of STRIKE Team Delta tended to be a bit reckless when it comes down to the things that are close to them.

For Alea that meant any small children or her friends or her brother. Natasha young girls. Clint, anything living and helpless. Phil anything and everything that caused him confusion, and young children. The number of times a small child had derailed a STRIKE Team Delta mission was innumerable. 

Alea took a harsh corner into a driveway that had what looked to be two extra cars. "Ed, is this the place?"

**"It is my dear."**

"Where exactly is Phil's tracker reading from?"

**"About two-hundred feet behind the house."**

Alea pulls off the helmet as she walks around the house. She spots a barn and figures that's where Coulson was. She was glad that she'd gotten around to replacing the tracker after SHIELD fell. As she approached the barn she could just barely hear a single voice. She knew it wasn't Coulson, but it definitely was a male. It had to be one of the other two TAHITI patients. 

As she leaned against the wall and waited for the right moment she listened to that same voice rant on and on about them being the same and that he wanted to know what the symbols meant. After a few seconds a scuffle breaks out and Alea opens the door. What she sees inside doesn’t faze her. Coulson is getting out of some rope ties and who she assumed was Thompson was escorting a woman and child out of the barn. Derik, who was covered in tattoos, was standing next to a giant train set. "Derik put down the knife." Alea drew the action to herself.

Derek looked at her with cold eyes. He threw a knife at her. "You were one of the scientists that did this to us!" Alea grabbed the knife out of the air with her left hand. 

Coulson grabbed a piece of rope and caught it around Derik's neck. He started to drag him up the steps to the loft area. Alea pulled out one of her own knives and followed Coulson. She held it steady as Coulson pulled Derik over to the railing and looked over it himself. 

“What the hell are you doing, Phil.” 

“I noticed something about the train tracks, Carter.” 

Alea looks over the edge to see the Kree Carvings in 3D. It was then that Mack and Skye burst through the doors with their guns drawn. Alea helps Coulson lift Derik up so he could he for himself.

"Put him down!" Skye yells. She has her gun pointed directly at Alea. Alea filters out all of the sounds around her and focuses on keeping Derik where he was. Soon he stops fighting and Alea let's go of him. Alea puts her hands up as Coulson does the same. She hears Coulson tell Skye to look over the railing and when she does she gasps. 

Alea makes her way off the loft and back up to where she'd left her motorcycle. She plops down on it and waits for the others to come back up. Coulson is the first and he just sits behind her on the motorcycle with his back against hers.

"Lea."

"Phil?"

"I don't feel the compulsion to carve anymore."

"Good." Alea shifts back and lets her head rest against his. It had been a long day. And the adrenalin was starting to bleed out of her system.

Alea turns at the sounds of footsteps as Skye, Mack, and Derik come back up to the house. She notes with some part of her mind that there are police sirens coming closer, but it still startles her when the flashing blue lights enter her line of sight. 

Coulson stands to talk to them about Derik and Skye comes over to her. 

"Carter, you alright there?"

Alea just looks up at her. "I'm suffering from two separate adrenaline crashes that were back to back. Not doing the best, but today ended better than I thought it would." Skye nodded in agreement.

Soon Coulson came back with Kline following him. Alea tuned out the conversation. After several minutes Kline went over to the SUV and got in. Skye had already got in and Mack followed suit. When Coulson got back on her bike behind her she shook her head before properly putting on her helmet and following the SUV back to the Playground. She just about passes out and she feels Coulson reach around her to put his hands over hers on the handlebars. She knows that Coulson will make her eat and sleep when they get back before sitting her down and grilling her on asking if she's been taking care of herself.

Once they made it back Alea slipped off to find somewhere to sleep. She’d let Coulson deal with the fallout and hopefully, she’d be allowed to sleep without interruptions. She made it to the couch in the lounge area before face planting and passing out.

* * *

When Alea next woke up she was alone in the room. She pulled out her phone to see that she had one unread message and that it was around noon the next day. “Ed, can you tell me where the others are?” 

**“They are in the lab going over the carvings.”**

Alea nods and tucks her phone back into her pocket. She makes her way to the lab to see the wireframe of a city. She comes up and stands next to Coulson. She flicks her hand to spin the wireframe so she can see it all laid out from a top-down perspective. She looks over it before tracing some points in her head that the others must have done, but she doesn’t know why they were causing thoughts of her childhood to come up. 

“Carter, you’re thinking about something over there.” Morse moves into Alea’s line of sight.

“I don’t know how many of you know how long I’d been a part of SHIELD when it fell, but something about this pattern reminds me of something from my time at SHIELD.” Alea looks over the group and lets her eyes settle on Mack and Morse who are the only two to look at her suspiciously. 

“Just how long have you been a part of SHIELD?” Hunter draws her attention.

“Officially? Since I was fifteen. Unofficially? Since the day I was born. I grew up in SHIELD facilities. So there is a lot of time to cover there. I just hope it wasn’t something Hydra related.” 

All but May and Coulson look at her with wide eyes. “What do you mean by that?” 

“Just what I said, I was a kid running around SHIELD bases. You guys do realize my last name is Carter, like the first director of SHIELD, Peggy Carter?” 

“She’s your mother?” Hunter looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

Alea nods and leaves the room to find something to eat. Hopefully, here soon they’ll end the question of why those patterns look familiar to her. 


	5. March 29: The Things We Bury

Alea watched Morse as she interrogated Bakshi. If they could just get a name or something they would be good. The only thing that Bakshi mentions is the fact that Whitehall knew the Red Skull. Which doesn’t make sense. Whitehall wasn't that old. And Red Skull had been dead for seventy years.

Soon Morse came back out without any real information. Alea joined her as she headed to one of the open gyms. She watched as she pulled out her battle staves. She started to spin them.

"Whitehall is most concerned with the original 0-8-4, right?” 

“Yes, why?” 

“Because, while this place is a SHIELD base now it started as an SSR one. There are many files that most wouldn’t think of being here.” Alea turns and heads towards Coulson's office. She goes over to the corner and pulls out a box. The box is labeled with Spring 1945. 

"So this box has the complete records of the raid on the Hydra base that the 0-8-4 was found at. I've only ever cataloged the items and never really paid attention to who was arrested there." Alea pulls out the first file and opens it.

"Wouldn't that have been counterproductive?" 

Alea shakes her head. "Not really. You got to remember I joined SHIELD in 1975. By then if any of the Hydra agents that would have been mentioned would have been dead, in jail, or for a few of them part of SHIELD." Alea flips open the file. "These would have been the first files I digitized."

Simmons opens the door. Alea waves her over to them. "Simmons, we need to find the original 0-8-4 file. Not sure if it got moved or not." Alea digs through the box and finds several other files. None of them labeled 0-8-4 though.

"Coulson put it in his desk, I think." 

Alea nods and makes her way around the desk. She pulls open the second drawer and there it was. She flips it open on the desk and has to stop for a second when her mother's handwriting registers. She shakes her head before scanning the file.

"Ah, so this is why Reinhardt was in the Rat." Alea’s muttering draws the attention of the other two.

“Who was Reinhardt?” 

“Werner Reinhardt. He was Hydra. He was released from the Rat for good behavior in 1989.” Alea places the file on the desk. “Though if we want anymore from this we’re going to have to go somewhere else.” 

Simmons looks at her with wide eyes. “What do you mean?” 

“Not all of the SSR records were kept on the main level. Some of them were kept in Vault B. Why do you think that Vault D is named as such?” Alea goes over to the wall of the office and opens a hatch. It has several keys hanging in it. Alea pulls one out and heads out of the office. 

They hurry to catch up to Alea. She was headed in the direction of her home. They watched her take a corner that they hadn’t been down much since getting to the Playground. The opens a hidden access panel and slides the key into it. “This is where anything sensitive ended up being stored when the Trisk was completed.” Alea leads them down into the room that was full of cobwebs. 

“What type of things are stored down here?” Simmons makes her way to the closest box of files. 

“Anything really. I think there is a vita-ray detector down here if I remembered to put the box back after getting something out of Roger’s original file. Of course, I think there are a ton of Stark Industry designs that Director Carter had said that Howard Stark wasn’t allowed to keep down here as well. Then you have the files that are scattered about. Those range from the start of the SSR to about three weeks before the Fall of SHIELD.” Alea makes her way back into where the writing on the boxes changes. These had been labeled decades before Alea had been born.

Alea pulled one that had RAT-1945 on it and carefully put it down on the nearby table. She opened the box just as carefully to avoid being assaulted by the dust. She starts to dig around in the file and finds Reinhart’s file. She comes back over to the others and places the file on the table before opening it. On the top of the left part was his picture from when he was imprisoned in 1945, and on the other side was Peggy Carter’s elevation of him.

Simmons takes in a deep breath when she sees the picture and Alea notices that Morse stiffens. “Morse, Simmons, what is it?” 

“Whitehall, he looks exactly like Reinhart.” Bobbie answers. 

“What do you mean by exactly? Cause I was always under the impression that there isn’t a way to reverse aging. Seeing as this,” Alea pointed at the picture, “was taken when he was imprisoned in the Rat in ‘45.” Alea pulls the picture free of the file and lets the other two look at it more closely. 

“No, this is definitely what Whitehall looks like.” Bobbie answers. 

Alea puts the picture back while nodding. “Then we need to talk to Bakshi again with this information. Morse, you’ll go down alone with the file, but I’ll be waiting at the top of the stairs with a full medical kit in case something goes wrong.” 

“He’s restrained, what could he do?” Simmons’s face was scrunched up in confusion. 

“Some members of Hydra have cyanide tablets embedded in their jaws. He bangs his head on the table hard enough he could crack it.” 

Alea takes the photo back and tucks it back into the file before handing the file to Morse. They head to Vault D and Alea takes a short detour to grab one of the medkits from one of the hidey holes. She lets the door to Vault D close behind Morse but watches on the video feed at the top of the steps to make sure it was going well. This one didn't have any sound, so Alea wasn’t one hundred percent sure what was being said. After a few moments, Bakshi slammed his head onto the table. Alea was halfway down the steps before his head hit the table. By the time he was sliding into the floor, she was laying out supplies as Morse straightened him out. 

“Morse, you remember the cyanide protocols?” Alea moved and slid on a pair of gloves before laying him on his side. Alea took a surge full of distilled water and squirted it into his mouth and forced his mouth closed for several seconds before allowing the water back out. Morse lifted him and carried him out of the vault. Alea stayed behind to clean up the mess.

Mack comes down the stairs with May following. “So Whitehall and Reinhart are one and the same?” 

“Apparently, but I know what Reinhart looked like when he was released from the Rat and that was an old man. How he managed to de-age himself is another matter entirely. One that I want an answer for.” 

“Couldn’t something like the supersoldier serum do that?”

"As far as I know? No. Rogers at best has slowed aging, Banner ages, and I don't. Though I don't age because my body basically always wants to be in the same condition as the day I was injected with the serum." Alea pacts up the medkit. 

“Really?” 

“Yep, I still have a scar across my chest from when I was seven, but I was shot when I was thirty and no longer have that scar.” Alea stands with the medkit in hand. She makes her way out of the vault. She takes the medkit to be resupplied before putting it back where she got it. She went to Coulson’s office. Sitting down in his chair she lets her mind wander. When a short burst of fear shot through her link with Coulson she went down it.

_Alea navigated Coulson’s mind easily finding his visual cortex and looking at what he was. Which was Skye’s father and a very injured Tripp. She pulled away and left Coulson’s mind. He needed to concentrate on saving Tripp and her presence could distract him._

Instead, she pulled out her phone and texted him to get a hold of her when he had the time. There was no more to process than she wished there was. Whitehall and Reinhart were one and the same and they had to deal with the 0-8-4. This year was looking to be as bad as the last. 


	6. April 2-4 : Aftershocks

Alea paced the hanger at the Playground waiting for Coulson and the others to make it back. She knew Simmons was still in San Juan and that Trip died there, but Mack and Skye both were exposed to something and if the recordings that she had from Skye’s talk with Raina were correct it was Kree related. Not surprising seeing as Alea already knew the writings were Kree, but it was a bit reassuring that she was on the right track. Coulson had also been badly injured, but he hadn't been exposed like the other two.

"If only I didn't have to deal with the US Government. Then some of this might have been avoided. Goddamn, you Talbot and wanting to talk to me." Alea spun on her heel before looking up at the hanger doors. Thankfully it was already dark out and she wasn’t blinded by the hangar doors opening, with the Bus landing not a minute later. 

Alea runs up to the Bus as soon as the cargo door opens. She makes note of everyone looking like shit. "If you are injured please let me know, I'll heal you after I get done with Coulson. The quarantine area has already been set up in the lab." 

Alea bodily drags Coulson to his office. Knowing that some of the other agents had been requested to set up the quarantine area for Mack and Skye. She knew Coulson wouldn't sit down for a few days if she didn't make him. He wasn’t fighting like he normally would telling her that he was more injured than he looked. Once they were in the office Alea solved him onto the couch and ordered him to strip off his shirt. 

Coulson sits up a little so he can tug it off after unbuttoning it. Once it was off and Alea could take a good look at the bruising she gasped. His whole chest was a light purple that promised to get darker before it got any lighter. “What the hell did you run into in San Juan?”

“Skye’s father and whatever possessed Mackinzie.” Coulson’s eyes followed the ring on Alea’s metal hand as she placed it flat on his chest. He’d never really asked about it, but he wondered where the hell she’d gotten it. 

“Two broken ribs, three cracked ones, bruising, and lacerations. You know you got off light with your injuries, right?” Coulson nods as Alea places her flesh had to replace the metal one on his chest. She starts to heal him and as the broken ribs mind, Coulson starts to breathe easier. After a few seconds, she pulls away before placing her hand on his cheek and heeling the damage there.

Once she is done she pulls her hand away. “Call Clint. Get some rest. I’m going to go down to the lab.” Coulson nods as Alea leaves.

Once Alea makes it to the lab the only ones in there are Skye and Mackenzie in their containment areas. She walks over to Skye’s first to see her looking forlorn at the floor.

"Skye, I'm going to have Simmons send me a breakdown of the pieces of Trip. I don’t think that whatever either of you was exposed to was contagious." Alea then walks over to Mack and says the same thing. She then gets dressed in the biohazard suit and takes a draw of Skye’s blood. “What are you going to do with that?”

“I have a theory. I’m not going to share any of it unless you want me to?” Skye shakes her head. Alea nods and then goes to do the same for Mack’s blood. She sets up Mack's blood test, up in the lab before heading up to her home lab. 

She sets it up the same way that she had downstairs, but with different parameters. She had Mack's set to match to his old blood sample, but Skye’s she set to see if the GH.325 was still present. It had been a Kree artifact that had killed Trip, if it had taken out the GH.325 in Skye's system then there would be less worry about what exactly had happened to Skye.

"Edwin, inform me when this is done."

**"Yes, my dear. Anything else that you want checked?"**

"No, just this for now. I'll deal with anything else to do with Skye’s DNA later."

Alea went back down to the Playground and found Coulson sitting next to Skye’s containment pod. Both seemed asleep. She went over to the computer that had Mack’s blood running. It was normal. No GH.325, nothing changed about it. She then ran the DNA. Not all changes that could affect the DNA affect the blood. Her own DNA attests to that. Seeing as her DNA is changed from when she was a child after she had her arm implanted. Though for a time her blood was also changed by the radiation, though that had faded after a while.

Alea made her way over to Coulson and shook him awake. “Mack’s parliamentary blood test has come back normal. I’m running the full DNA scan now.”

Coulson nods before pointing at Skye. “I have Skye’s running up at my house. I didn’t want cross-contamination of any sort.” Coulson nods again. Alea pulled a chair over and leaned against Coulson. “How did your call to Clint go?”

“He and the kids are doing well. When we figure this out with Skye and Mack I’m going to take the Howling Commandos gear back to Trip’s mother. Along with anything else of Trip’s, that’s still here. Then I’m going home for a few nights.”

“Sounds good. Do you want me to come with you or stay here?” 

“Do you want to come with me?” 

“Of course. I know that you and Clint had talked about having Laura be a surrogate again. Also, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Coop and Lila.” 

Coulson wraps his arm around Alea. He knew that she was drained from all that she’d been dealing with Talbot and now this. They all were. Alea had always found small children to be a breath of fresh air, so it makes sense that she’d want to go. “Alright then, we’ll go together. I’ll leave May in charge while we’re gone.” Alea nods sluggishly. He sighed and allowed Alea to fall asleep leaning against him. Coulson watched Skye sleep before nodding back off himself.

* * *

When Alea woke six hours later she was still leaning against Coulson who now had his tablet in his hand. Skye was also awake and the two were talking softly. Mack's pod was empty.

"Mack was cleared wasn’t he?" Alea sat up.

Coulson nodded. "Edwin set off your alarm about three hours ago. I muted it and let you sleep."

Alea glared at him before pulling her phone out. Skye’s blood still had the GH.325 in it. Which meant that either Skye wasn’t affected by the 0-8-4 by something in her DNA. “Skye, I’m going to take another sample of your blood to run some other tests on it.” 

Alea gets suited up and does another blood draw. After taking the suit off she heads back up to her house knowing that Edwin can run the tests for her and that they can be kept a secret until it was needed from those other than Coulson. Once she gets it started she informs Edwin, “Do not send me the results of this one. I’ll come back up in a few hours to look at it.” 

**“Yes, my dear.”**

Alea heads back down to talk to Skye about what happened. Only to see that everyone had gathered together in the lab. She walked up to them to hear them bickering about something. Then suddenly the room was shaking. After a few seconds, Morse raises her voice and gets everyone to calm down. The trimmers stop as well. No-one other than Skye seemed to realize that anything had happened and she wonders what had caused them. Alea walks over to Skye as the rest of the team leaves. 

“Skye, I want to talk to you in private.” Alea sits down in what had been Coulson’s seat and takes off her glasses.

“Sure.” Skye looks her in the eye and Alea enters her mind.

_ Alea sees what had happened to Trip the moment that she enters Skye’s head. Him roundhouse kicking what had been inside of the 0-8-4. Mist escaping it. Him being impaled by it before turning to stone. Both of them reaching out and turning to stone.  _

_ “Holy shit. I was right to run your DNA.” Alea moves away from the memory and further into Skye’s head.  _

_ “I think I caused the earthquake that destroyed the underground city. The things in my cantonment pod were shaking just a little bit ago.”  _

_ “I know. If, and I do mean if, anything comes from me running your DNA I’m only telling Coulson. I don’t think you are contagious.” _

_ “How can you know?” _

_ Alea looks around Skye’s head, not really looking for anything other than the 0-8-4. “Because it takes a lot to be contagious when it’s something in your DNA. I mean you have to be extremely sick with radiation posing just to affect someone else. I’m going to have them run all the radiation tests on you when I get done.”  _

_ Skye nods. “What are you looking for?”  _

_ “When you and Rania went onto the temple.” Alea looks over at Skye as she nods again. Then the memory surrounds the two of them. Alea watches as Rania places the 0-8-4 on the pedestal. The same symbols that Coulson had been carving glowing orange on the body of it.  _

_ Alea suddenly pulls herself from Skye's head but doesn’t surface in her mind, but Coulson’s. She now knew why she knew those symbols. She had seen the 0-8-4 once when she was four.  _

_ “Alea, what’s up?” Coulson appears in front of her in his mind. _

_ “You know how we’d, no I’d been trying to figure out why I know those symbols that you were carving?” Alea’s voice shook as she spoke. _

_ “Alea were you just in Skye’s head?”  _

_ Alea nods. She takes a deep breath. “The symbols glowed orange on the 0-8-4. I had seen it once when I was four being held by a lab tech that got fired not long after that incident. It wasn’t my  _ father _ who exposed me to it, but someone else.” Coulson nods and they talk for a little bit longer before Alea goes back to her head.  _

Alea comes back to herself and walks out of the lab pulling one of the techs aside to tell them to run all types of radiation tests on Skye. They nod and Alea goes to find out if there were any records down in Vault B from that day.

She found the box from 1964 and without a care for the dust she dropped it into the floor. She started to go through it looking for anything that looked off from them. Her name wouldn't be on them, but hopefully, the fact that it had to deal with the 0-8-4 it would still be in the records. After a while, she found one from June of that year that looked promising. She pulled it out and started to read it. 

> Jacob Campbell was fired for opening the containment unit of the original 0-8-4. Though there were curious effects to him touching it, instead of turning to stone like everyone else we have known to have touched it, it glowed orange. This is from another agent that was in the room when he touched it. The 0-8-4 has been placed back into its containment and will be moved to a more secure location as soon as possible.  
> 

Alea shut the file and knew that she didn’t have the personal file there in Vault B. Personal records had been kept in Vault A, but most had been digitized and so Alea headed back up to the lab to see how Skye was doing before going home to talk to Edwin. 

When Alea made it up to the lab she could see Simmons talking to Coulson and May about something. She walks up to them. “Those with this DNA change could be a plague. We need to find Raina and deal with her.”

“Altered DNA cannot be passed from person to person. Just ask Banner, Rogers, or well me.” Alea buts in. “Otherwise there would be more people with a raging monster inside of them.”

“What do you mean your DNA is changed?” Coulson looked over at her. She forgets that because he knew her only after she’d had a time of trying to figure that oddity out.

“My DNA won’t even pull up a partial match to my parents without a lot of work being put in due to what’s been done to me over the years.” Coulson’s eyes settle on Alea and she rubs the back of her head. “Edwin, pull up my DNA from the records.” She cackles as she turns to the computers.

There was no answer from the AI, just one of the computers coming to life and showing quite the mess of altered DNA. Not only did it have a few extra molecules but it was rearranged from what normal DNA would be. “If you wanted to match that to my parents you would find only about ten percent matches instead of the close to fifty percent that it should. To my younger brother, only about forty percent of the DNA changes match. It used to match closer before what happened to me at fourteen with thirty-eight to my parents and eighty-eight to my brother, but never has it fully matched due to the experiments done on me as a child.” Alea closes her DNA panel and walks over to Skye.

“But still we don’t know what could have happened with the Obelisk! It is alien!” Simmons grabbed the back of Alea’s jacket. 

Alea shook her off, “DNA mutations can only be passed from parent to child, and even then it mutates. Or have you forgotten highschool science?” Alea’s voice was icy. Simmons took a step back before leaving. 

After a few moments, Alea felt Coulson come up beside her. “I think that Simmons is just worried. Trip's death has made her worried.” 

“For nothing, I think. At least in this type of case, now if there are other Obelisks then we do have problems, but once a change has been made to DNA we probably don’t have any problem with a plague as Simmons put it.” Alea turns and leaves. 

As she makes it to the doorway she feels Coulson pressing at their links. Alea opens it up and she lets him enter. She continues on her way out and back up to her house.

_ “So that’s why you weren’t afraid that someone would figure out that you were a Stark.”  _

_ “Yep, DNA matching is less than they would expect for siblings or even parents to children. So I’ve never really had to worry about a DNA match.” Alea pushes Coulson out of her head and closes the link. _

When she opened the door to her home lab she saw that there was a significant change to her DNA down there. She sat down and had Edwin pull up Raina’s from the lab. As she looked over the two side by side there weren't many of the same changes on both of them. Meaning that whatever happened down there with the mist that the 0-8-4 put off was what changed their DNA. 

“Edwin.” 

**“Yes, my dear?”**

“The earthquake earlier today, how localized was it?” 

**“My sensors just picked it up radiating out from Skye’s cantonment cell.”**

Alea tapped her chin. “And the one in San Juan? Does it match what would have been four explosions?” 

**“Less accurate data, but it also seemed to be localized at the temple.”**

“Do we have enough data to suggest earthquake or at least powers that suggest something to do with vibrating things?” Alea spun in her chair.

**“No, My Dear. At least three more data points needed.”**

“Alright let's go talk to Skye.”

On her way to the lab, Coulson grabbed her and pulled her to his office. “Alea, will you be coming with us tomorrow to take out Hydra’s current heads using Bakshi?” 

“I can. I’m guessing we have a plan to infiltrate their ranks with, let me guess Hunter?”

Coulson nods and shows her the bit of script that he had written up. It doesn’t take long for her to read it. She hands it back after she is done reading it. “I think I’ll stay here.” Alea leaned up and punched in the number to lockdown Coulson’s office. As the glass went dark and the locking bolt for the top of the door slid in place Alea relaxed.

“What’s wrong, Lea?” 

“Skye’s tests came back.” Alea pulled out her phone and pulled up the test results before locking the phone back and handing it over. Coulson unlocked it again and looked over the results.

“This true?” Coulson sits the now locked phone back on the desk.

Alea nodded. He slid the phone over to Alea who grabbed it. “Do we know what it means?”

“No, but I don’t think it’s anything worse than the GH.325 on contagion. Past that until I look more into it I have no clue.” 

Coulson nods and punches in the code to release the lockdown and goes back to work. Taking note of the fact that the sun had long since set as she left she decided to leave the questions for tomorrow and went to bed.

* * *

Alea made it down to the lab the next morning much later than she wanted to because she had to deal with Goose who while normally not a big nuisance, decided to be one that morning. There was no way that she was going to take the Flerkin down into the Playground because the team was tenser than she’d like. Also, Goose tended to eat people that made her mad. 

So when she made it down there to see that someone had knocked over the lamp in Skye’s pod. Skye was bent over trying to pick it up when Alea walked over and knocked on the glass. Skye jumped and blood started to flow. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Alea grabbed a pack of gauze from the table behind her and put it in the little cubby that Skye had access to. “Use that to stem the blood flow. I’m going to go put on a suit.” Skye nodded and took the gauze. 

Alea walked over to the corner to put on the hazmat suit. Just as she was pulling on the pants May and Simmons came into the room. They walk over to Skye and start to question her about what had happened as Fitz came flying back into the room. He starts to ramble about how he was the one that knocked over the lamp when he took Skye’s blood and that it was better for her to try and pick it up than him. Which is fair he could have damaged himself worse due to the shaking his hands do. It was then that he stated what Alea knew was a blatant lie, but one that she was going to back up. “Skye’s DNA is unchanged. I’m going to go ahead and go help her clean up.” 

Fitz walked into the contaminant pod. May and Simmons smile before they both walk off. Both heading in opposite directions once out of the lab. Alea walks over to the pod and walks inside as well. “You’re getting good at lying, Fitz.”

Both of them look at her with fear. Alea takes off her glasses before linking her mind with both of theirs. 

_ “I know that Skye’s DNA is drastically changed, so does Coulson. I’ll tell him when we leave this afternoon to keep it to himself. I don’t like Simmons’ attitude toward this right now.”  _

Both nod and her and Fitz get both Skye and the cantonment pod cleaned up. “Go take a good shower, Skye.” Skye nods and makes her way out of the lab. Alea grabs Fitz before he could make his way out. 

“Which computer did you run Sky’s tests on?” Fitz leads her to it and she wipes any trace of the test that says that there was a change in Skye’s DNA off of it. Simmons was on a warpath and they didn’t need any of the others to do the same. She stays and talks to Fitz until Coulson comes around with the Howling Commandos case in hand. 

Both of them leave in Alea’s quinjet with Alea’s motorcycle loaded as well. When they make it out to LA Alea lands the quin in an empty field outside of city limits and they rig the case up so that they could both ride on the motorcycle and have the case. Edwin reads out the directions to Mrs. Triplett's.

Once they make it there Coulson knocks on the door as Alea holds the case. When Mrs. Triplett opens the door and takes in the two of them and the case and breaks down crying. Coulson walks up and hugs her. Both Coulson and Alea’s eyes settle on the photo on the wall of the Howling Commandos. 

When Mrs.Triplett pulls away from Coulson Alea hands over the case. “Antoine Triplett served his country just as well as his grandfather did. All of us at SHIELD are sorry to see him go.” Alea rose her hand in a silhouette to the photo and held it for several seconds. When she dropped her hand she then turned to Mrs. Triplett. “I’m sorry, but due to how he died we cannot currently give you the body for burial. But should you want to do a funeral for him anyway please let me know if you need any help.”

Mrs. Triplett nodded before wrapping Alea in a hug. When Alea wrapped her arms around her. Mrs. Triplett stiffened slightly before saying, “You are Peggy Carter’s daughter are you not?” 

Alea nodded. “I am. I mean what I said too. If you want to do a funeral and need any help with it just call me.” Alea pulls back and pulls out a business card from her wallet. “Your son was a very good agent and all of us at SHIELD would like to thank you for allowing him to serve.” 

Mrs. Triplett nodded. They stood and talked for a few more minutes before they left. As soon as they were out of the building Coulson grabbed her by the flesh arm. “I didn’t know that you knew the Tripletts’.” 

“Of course I did. I knew all of the original Howling Commandos along with some of the later ones as well. Let’s remember who I learned to fight from at age four. Mrs.Triplett is Gabe Jones’ only kid. She was closest to me in age and we played together some. But he moved out here when she was seven or eight. I came out here some to talk to Jones when he was dying and Trip was seven or eight though.” Alea got on her motorcycle and Coulson followed suit. 

Once back at the quin they took off towards the Barton-Colson homestead for a few days. 


	7. April 9: Who You Really Are

As the Bus took off Alea leaned back into the co-pilot's seat. “Alea why are you up here?” May glanced over at Alea.

Alea doesn’t look at May as she answers, “Because the rest of the seats with buckles are full.” As soon as the Bus got to cruising altitude Alea left to find Coulson. 

“If Lady Sif is here she must be following something alien.” 

"Yes, and I'm a little worried about what that is."

“I was just on the phone with the police that has custody of Sif.” 

“What did they have to say?” Alea sat down in the only other chair in the office. 

“That she doesn’t seem to know anything other than the word ‘Kava’, not her own name.” 

“Well on our planet Kava is a plant extract. Though if that’s not any Earth language I have no clue.” Alea leans up and Coulson hands over the tablet. It doesn’t take long for her to read everything that their contact had informed them of. 

“Phil,” Alea places the tablet on the edge of the desk. She waited until Coulson was looking at her before continuing, “Skye’s DNA changes. Fitz and I have been going over them and we still don’t know exactly what type of powers other than she can cause things to shake. If she can keep a level head, and her work with May is helping with that, I might be able to help her figure them out.” Coulson nods and Alea stands. “Me, you, Skye, and Fitz are the only ones that know, and I’d like to keep it that way.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, Alea. Though if it comes down to the safety of the team, I will tell them.” Alea nods and leaves the office. She goes down to the lab and talks to FitzSimmons as they get ready to do what could be needed. 

When they land Alea goes with Coulson and May to pick up Sif. When they get her in their custody they realize that she has no memories. Alea has her look at her as she tries to find anything personal in her mind, not just what would be considered basics. There was nothing, not even a wall that they were hidden behind. 

“No memories, hopefully, Skye has found something.” Alea slides her glasses back on and they don’t have to wait long for May to come back with a tablet. On it was a video that Skye had dug up from Twitter. The four of them watched it before spitting up. Alea went back to the Bus to be ready to process anything from the scene while the rest split up. 

It took a little while for anything to come in, but when it did it was Nitrogen, not blood like they had thought. Alea listened over the comms as Sif explained that there weren't any bipedal alien species that required heightened levels of Nitrogen to breathe. Alea immediately remembered something that Wendy Lawson had told her a long time ago. That the Kree could change the color of their skin using various elements. 

Alea reached up and turned on her comm. “What about ones that would use it to disguise themselves?” 

** “Many, but we’d need to know what color his skin is naturally.”  **

Alea had Edwin pull up nearby hospitals. “Skye, Morose, I’m sending you two the address of a nearby hospital. It’s the closest place to the scene that would be using liquid nitrogen.” 

Alea turns back off her comm as she goes up to the command center on the main floor. It wasn’t long before Coulson, Sif and May arrived back at the Bus with the science team were still looking into something. After a while longer their comms crackled to life with Skye’s voice coming in short gasps.  ** “He was blue. He used the nitrogen to turn his skin pink.”  **

“What happened Skye?” Coulson moves to have Mack and Hunter go collect the girls when he finds out that both of them have been out. Alea just looks over at Sif to see if she’d figured out what Alea had. Kava having been the Kree word for Keys, seeing as that seemed to be what they were dealing with. Alea started to look in the nearby areas for anything from the SHIELD records that might point to where the hell he was going. 

It wasn’t long after they had Skye and Morose on the Bus before Sif was pointing out that Kava was the Kree work for keys, but she had no idea of what the Kree would want on Earth. 

“You guys, I think he’s headed to Chaves, which means keys in Portuguese, fun fact.” Alea pulls up Whitehall’s file and looks through it, “It is also where Whitehall did his excavation during the war.” 

“Alea, get the coordinates of the dig site. Compare it to what you have already found.” Alea nods and gets to work. After several moments of calculating trajectory, Alea knew that the exact dig site is where he was going. Alea stays behind when they go to collect him and gets the Cage ready to hold the Kree. After that, she goes up to Coulson’s office and pulls off her glasses, and places them on his desk. She then goes down to the cargo hold to wait on the team to make it back. 

As the Team unloaded the Kree he looked over at her and Alea entered his head before closing her eyes. As soon as she could tell that they had gone up to the second floor Alea followed them. She leaned against the wall outside of the Cage so that she could get in there if needed.

_ Alea stayed to the edges of his mind. She didn’t want him to realize that she was there. This also meant that while she could look at the memories floating in his head she’d need to be careful about going into them. As she wandered around she saw him fighting alongside many other Kree. _

_ Suddenly a memory came in front of her that had Danvers in it. He was fighting alongside her in some type of battle. Danvers didn’t look all that different from the memories that she’d seen in Fury’s head. Though it seemed like this should have been before Danvers came back to Earth.  _

_ She decided to look around some more and found more moments of him fighting. Mostly using his truncheon as his primary weapon rather than the energy guns that she’d seen in Lawson’s memories. He could erase and return memories using it. Which was interesting, because the truncheon must be holding the memories instead of just blocking them. As Alea wondered some more she saw other faces that she recognized including Lawson herself.  _

_ Not long after she came across his visual cortex and could see Sif and Coulson leaning over the Kree. Coulson soon told Sif to leave before following and Alea decided it was time to pull free.  _

As soon as Alea was back in her own mind she went to find Skye. She found Skye sitting in what had once been her bunk. Alea slid the door closed as she sat down on the floor. “Skye, you alright?” 

Skye shakes her head and Alea could see the full body tremors. “You’ll get control of your powers in time. It will happen.” 

“But, what if I can’t?” 

“You can. Do you want to hear about when I first had my powers? The only person who knew for a very long time was my childhood best friend. That first day that looked anyone in the eye I went into their head. It continued to be an issue up until I joined SHIELD. It’s why I created the glasses. It didn’t matter if I was in a heightened emotional state or not.” Alea joined Skye on the bed and hugged her tight. “It took until I was over thirty before I could reliably go without the glasses and at this point, I wear them so that those who know about my powers know if I can get into their heads or not.” 

Skye manages to calm herself down and pulls away from Alea as they land. They join Coulson and Sif in escorting the Kree into the base. When they got to the big main room they went in and stood in a circle. Coulson had gained the Kree’s truncheon at some point. Eventually, he got tired of trying to negotiate its return and just kicked it out of Coulson’s grip with a flip that landed it in his hand. He struck Sif with it before dropping it to the floor and raising his hands above his head. 

Sif manages to explain why she was on Earth and again asks the Kree what he was doing on earth. 

“I received a signal that someone underwent Terragenesis. I came here before the less savory of people realized that it happened,” He explained. 

“Kree have never been on Midgard.” This statement from Sif makes Alea laugh. 

“Oh, they have in recent history too. I worked with one in the dying days of the Kree-Skrull War in what would have been the Earth years of 1988 and 1989. Then at the end of the Kree-Skrull War, a group I think was called the Starforce came to get a single human who kicked their asses, and sent them packing. Her name was Carol Danvers who had the Kree name of Vers. That was in 1995.” Everyone was looking at Alea with wide eyes. Some even had mouths open in disbelief. 

“The Kree that came earlier was her name Mar-Vell?” Alea nodded and the Kree dropped to the floor. Alea looked over at Coulson to see him come back together and Alea could see where the details that he never got came together with what he had. 

“They were here twice before and didn’t cause a war?” Sif asked.

“Not with humans. Very few people were injured. An agent of SHIELD lost his eye, a few Skrull were killed and a few Kree were killed as well. Past that Earth didn’t know that there had been aliens on it.” Alea kneeled to look at the Kree. “So if you didn’t know about those two incidents when exactly were Kree here?” Alea’s eyes were hard and the Kree scooted back a little at the harshness of her voice. 

“A long time ago, a faction of the Kree wanted to create weapons. It was a genetic experiment.” 

Sif cut in before he could continue, “Asgard knew of that. It didn’t work.” 

“It worked on humans. Made them too powerful to control. The project was shut down when those higher up found out. The abominations change when they come into contact with the Terrigen Mist. Become weapons. When it was shut down the crate was left and if those in charge now found out they’d likely restart it.” 

“How many Diviners were in the box?” Coulson spoke up for the first time.

“Enough to create an army.”

Alea stood as the comm in her ear sparked to life with Simmons’ voice,  ** “Sir, the box is empty.”  **

The Kree’s eyes widened as he seemed to slump further “Shit.” Alea sifted so that she could be ready to tackle either the Kree or Sif.

“We’ll just have to go off the fact they were all taken in the forties.” Coulson put the tablet down. “Though the City was destroyed.The one that was used to activate them.” 

“It was?” 

Coulson nodded and turned towards Skye, “Skye was in the temple when the Diviner was activated. We know who changed and we have what is needed to track her.”

Lea felt the floor start to shake and focused both on Skye and the Kree instead of the words flying around. As it started to shake worse he Kree attempted to get up, but Alea pinned him to the floor, wrapping her metal arm around his neck. He started to struggle against her, and Alea was dimly aware of the glass windows shattering, but she kept her grip strong against him. She pressed hard enough against his neck to cut off his air supply and eventually he stopped struggling. Not long after the shaking stopped and Alea’s heart dropped.

After a while, Coulson came back with a subdued Sif. “What happened?” 

“Skye shot herself with May’s ICER rounds.” Alea stood and made sure that the Kree’s truncheon was far away from him. 

They worked out that it would be best to wait until daylight for them to find a suitable place for the Bifrost to be activated. Alea with Mack’s help put the Kree in Vault D. As they were making their way back to the others Alea’s phone let out an ear-splitting squeal. Alea pulled out her phone as she made a mad dash to the database room. The sound stopped as soon as she had unlocked the phone.

“Edwin, report.” Alea sat down in the chair that was in front of the accessing computer.

** “The Index was hacked. I have shut down the server, but whoever did this already has the full list of currently indeed individuals.”  **

“Shit.” Alea rubbed her hand through her hair. “Do we have any idea on the origin of the hack?” 

** “I am currently running it, but not right now.” **

“Continue to run it. I’ll start rebuilding the security later. Right now, I’m going to find Coulson.”

Alea took her phone and dashed off to find Coulson. She had checked his office and his room before detouring to Skye’s bunk. When she didn’t find him there she headed up to her house. When she opened the door to the house she found him leaned against the purple wall. 

“What happened?” Coulson started to go to the living room. Alea followed him.

“The server that held the Index was hacked. Edwin has already shut it down, but they already had the full list. He’s working on backtracking the hack.” Coulson looked at her with wide eyes for the second time that day before forcing her to sit down. 

“So someone has the full Index. I wonder how that happened because they didn’t trip anything with Edwin did they?” 

Alea hummed in agreement before saying, “Not until they were already through it. I know that Skye has to go on the Index and I’ll bring back up the server once we know what the hell is going on.” 

Coulson nods and wraps his arm around her shoulders. “It’ll work itself out in the end. What level of encryption are you going to use this time?” 

“Top-level done in SIC1. I used SIC3 and SIC4 when building the server originally. There is a big difference between every version of Stark Industries Code platforms. I’m kinda surprised that this even happened in the first place seeing as the last time four was even used Tony was four or five.”

“Go get some rest. I don’t want you working on this until we have some idea of who was doing this.” 

“Phil, as soon as this calms down again, I’m going to show Fitz and Skye how to remove and replace my arm.” 

“You trust them that much?” 

Alea nods and makes her way up to her room to see Goose sitting in the middle of the bed. She pets the Flerkin before changing and laying down next to it. Surprisingly it doesn’t take long at all for her to fall asleep. Alea allowed herself to fall deeply asleep knowing that May and Coulson along with Sif would be able to deal with the Kree the next day.


	8. April 11: Interlude

After close to a day of rebuilding the Index server Alea stood and stretched. While she hadn't reconnected it to the network just yet it was ready to be once they figured out who hacked the thing. 

“Ed, any update on the origin of the hack?” Alea stretched her arms above her head causing her sleeves to slide back and allow light to glance off the metal of her left arm. When she drops her arms she picks up her glasses from the table and slides them on.

** “No, my dear. I’m hard at work, but they routed through about two dozen offshore servers.”  **

“Alright, continue to work on it. I’m going to go take a break.” Alea picked up the trash from around her desk and tossed it in the trashcan before leaving the room. Alea made her way back up out of the server part of the Playground before making her way up to her house. She makes her way to the little workshop on the first floor. There were many things just tossed on the worktops around the room. Most of it looked to be in the veins of prosthetics. She walks to the back of the room and pulls out a drawer and pulls out a small toolbox and a satchel that has something of considerable weight in it. 

As she makes her way to the Lab she connects her head to Coulson’s. 

_ “Meet me on the Bus in Ten. I’m going to go get Fitz so I can show them how to take off my arm.” _

_ “Will do.”  _

Alea leaves his head as she reaches the lab. She sticks her head into the lab and yells, “Fitz come here!” before pulling her head back out of the room. She leans against the wall and waits for Fitz to appear. It takes almost a minute for him to appear in front of her and when he does Alea just starts walking. She turns when she doesn't hear Fitz following and sees him just standing just outside of the lab.

“Come on! I have something to show you!” Alea raises her left hand and as it reflects the dim light it causes Fitz to snap out of whatever mood he was in. He hurried to catch up with her.

“Are you going to let me take apart your arm?” Fitz asks, noticing the large satchel that she had. 

“Nope. You and Skye are going to learn how to detach and reattach my arm.” 

As they make it to the hangar Alea scans her badge to get the doors to open and Fitz also scans his. They walked out to the Bus and Coulson was standing there on the ramp. Alea doesn’t stop moving, just diverting around Coulson before heading up the steps to the Cage.

"Skye, you alright for us to come in?" Alea nocks on the door.

"Who all is with you?" Skye’s voice was surprisingly steady.

"Coulson and Fitz."

"You can come in."

Alea pushed open the door and allowed the other two to go before she shut the door back behind her. "Edwin, lock down the video from the cage. Only access is access code 80."

** "Understood. Lockdown initiated."  ** Came from Alea's jacket pocket.

“Why are you locking down the video?” Fitz wrung his hands. 

“Because what I’m about to have Coulson show you is something that I only show those I trust the most. And currently, I only trust the two of you.” Alea places the bag on the table before sitting down. Alea then pulls off her black jacket to reveal a thin long-sleeved shirt. She pulls that over her head. She had on a sports bra and both Fitz and Skye's eyes were drawn to the scar that ran from her left shoulder down across her chest to her right hip. Even Coulson’s eyes lingered there for a little bit.

Alea follows their eyes to the scaring. She runs her hand down the last third of it. “I forget that I normally cover that with the same stuff used to cover my arm.” 

“Why would you do that? All SHIELD agents have scars.” Skye tilts her head trying to figure out why she didn’t like the scar. It didn’t look all that bad, it was barely even pink in color. 

“This one doesn’t fade. It’s the worst of the ones like that. It gets hard to explain why I have had a scar since the ’60s that never looks any better. So most of the time it gets covered up.” Alea looks over at Coulson. “Anyway, what both of you are about to learn is how to take off and replace my arm. Coulson is the only one on the team that knows and if I end up unconscious it might have to come off.”

They both nod. Alea pulls out the little toolkit and lays down. Coulson sits down next to her and opens it up. “Skye, Fitz, what you have to understand is that you start at the elbow and work your way up to the shoulder.” Coulson points to the small access point right below the bend of the elbow.

"You start here and disconnect the nerves." Coulson inserts the smallest of the allen wrenches into it and turns it to the left. "You should see the hand go into the position that it is now in. Relaxed, but the fingers are not flat.” They both nod.

Coulson then changes to the next size up allen wrench. He points to the two bolts just above the elbow and on opposite sides. “Then you undo these two bolts.” He takes the two bolts out. He placed them into the lid of the toolkit. They were long for where they were in her arm. “Next you do the four bolts at her shoulder.” 

Alea and Coulson move her arm so that it is far enough away from her side to get at the one under her armpit. “I normally start with the one on the top of her shoulder and go around ending at the one on her back.” Coulson takes out the three bolts that are accessible before dropping them in the lid. Alea then rolls so that she is laying on her right side with a little help from Coulson. Luckily neither are paying attention to the device in her lower back. He then takes out the last bolt. “When you go to slide the arm off, have one hand at the shoulder and one at the elbow.” He then does so.

Coulson places the arm to the side. Fitz and Skye’s eyes settle on the stump, neither having seen it before. It was oddly toned for the fact that she wore something over it most of the time. It was also very pale. 

“Alea, did you bring the other model of arm?” 

“Yes, it’s in the bag.” Alea points to the shoulder bag that she’d brought. Fitz hands it over to Coulson who opens it and pulls out the much shorter arm. It only went up to the elbow with two small parts that go up a little further. 

Alea sits up properly. “The difference between the two models is that my main arm just pulls straight off and most of my spares, as I like to call them twists after taking out the screws.”

Coulson hands the arm over to Alea who lays it across her lap. She moves the top of it in such a way that it looked unnatural before sliding into her port. She then twists the arm ninety degrees. “That’s the only difference between my two types of arms. Otherwise, they are the same procedure with fewer screws.” Alea grabs the bolts from the lid and starts placing them into their holes on her arm, including the four that went in her shoulder on the other model. 

“If you have to keep her arm off somewhere that isn’t a SHIELD base you probably want to put them back into her, seeing as a few points in her shoulder aren’t as stable without them.” Both nod and Alea has both of them turn off the nerves before allowing them to take off the short arm and put it back on. Afterward, Alea leaves on the short arm and gets dressed. She tucks the full arm in the bag.

"I'm going to go. I've got to check in a few things. Just remember I don't just show anyone how to take off my arm so don’t go around telling any of the others." Alea left the Cage and headed back to her house. She dropped the arm on her workbench and started to tear it down to work on it. As she pulled out a few screws and a few of the upper plates came off Edwin altered her to something.

"What is it, Ed?" Alea continued to tear down the arm.

** "I have traced the hack back to Arizona. Not quite sure where, but I am closer." **

Alea put down the tools and leaned back. "Were there any SHIELD members or assets out there?" 

** "One Index member was, but he had been outfitted with a chip much like Skye’s bracelet was back before she was an agent."  **

Alea looked back down at her work before answering, "Keep looking. If there is any trace I know you can find it, Ed."

** "You put too much faith in me, my dear." **

"No, I built you and helped you grow. I put as much faith in you as I do my brother and nephew." Alea continued to work on her arm well into the night knowing that Skye and Fitz knew that someone was on their side.


End file.
